1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to managing wireless communications networks and, specifically, cellular and/or personal communication system (PCS) networks (hereinafter, collectively, xe2x80x9ccellular network(s)xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccellular system(s)xe2x80x9d). More particularly, the present invention is directed to monitoring events in a cellular network and associating a particular event or series of events with a likely type of failure in the cellular system, thereby preempting failures or quickly detecting failures.
2. Background of the Invention
Demand for cellular system capacity has grown substantially over recent years and growth continues even today. To accommodate this ever increasing demand, new cellular antennas and switches are being fielded, along with associated cabling and other infrastructure necessary to support expansion of the network.
However, as the cellular system grows, so do the number of problems or failures that tend to occur in the network. That is, even though failures may not be particularly common in any single piece of equipment, the more such equipment is placed in the field, the more likely failures will tend to occur in the aggregate. Unfortunately, this increased number of failures can overburden available technicians and cellular system management personnel and engineers.
More particularly, it is often the case that the underlying cause of a particular failure in the cellular system is not known at the time the failure is detected. For example, when a single channel at a cell site begins to fail or fails, the failure can, under certain circumstances, cause xe2x80x9cripplexe2x80x9d effects throughout the entire cell site, making it appear as though there is a problem with the entire cell site. That is, the fact that the failure is related to only one channel may not be immediately apparent to the cellular system operator. It is not until a technician is dispatched to the cell site to troubleshoot the failure that it is discovered that the underlying cause of the failure was, in fact, the failure of only a single channel module, and that the replacement of that one module will rectify the overall problem.
Also, a cellular system failure may sometimes go unnoticed by the cellular system operator until cellular system customers begin complaining about spotty or inadequate service.
In other words, under conventional cellular system management system, it is often difficult to timely detect and determine the source or cause of a problem or failure without having to rely on system customers or having to dispatch technicians to apparent trouble spots. Furthermore, due to the limited number of properly trained technicians, there may not be a suitable technician who is readily available to troubleshoot system failures.
The present invention provides a method and system to more effectively manage and/or monitor a cellular or PCS system or network. In accordance with the present invention, the network is monitored using event data that is available from the system infrastructure itself, including infrastructure data such as billing data, blocking statistics, call processing data, call activity counters, system alarm information and any other event data that can be collected and analyzed in accordance with the principles of the present invention. In the context of the present invention, billing data includes calling and called party telephone numbers and length of call, and blocking statistics include the number and frequency of calls initiated by a cellular system user that cannot be processed as a result of the cellular system being too busy. Call processing data includes, for example, cell site handoff data, call activity counters including counters for RF cell loss or high BER, and alarms including autotune combiner failures or power amplifier failures.
In accordance with the present invention, a computer is programmed to perform the tasks of remotely accessing a cellular switch (or database) and downloading data that is available from the cellular system infrastructure. The downloaded data is then parsed to capture particular events that have been found to be relevant to cellular system operation. Such events include, for example, blocked calls, dropped calls, noise, lack of audio, one-way audio or any other event that detrimentally impacts a cellular system customer. The events just described are, in accordance with the present invention, gleaned from the information or data available from the cellular system infrastructure.
The events gleaned from the cellular system infrastructure via parsing are then analyzed with respect to a predetermined event-to-failure xe2x80x9cmappingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccorrelationxe2x80x9d scheme. For example, through empirical experimentation, the present inventor has recognized that certain types of failures can be detected by analyzing the information that is available from the cellular system infrastructure. Using billing data along with call processing data, for example, one can find instances of cellular telephone calls that last only a short period of time, e.g., 5 to 7 seconds, and which are initiated and ended by the same cellular telephone user. Such short telephone calls can often be attributed to problems with a channel""s audio signal. By detecting short calls of this nature and counting how may similar telephone calls are begun and ended in such a fashion over a predetermined period of time, it is often possible to predict, with considerable certainty, that a channel""s audio signal is about to fail or has already failed.
In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, once a likely or possible failure in the cellular system is detected, a person responsible for tending to or managing the resolution of that particular type of failure is notified by, for example, email, telephone, wireless telephone or pager, or other PCS device. The failure or potential failure can then be tended to in a timely and efficient manner.
In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the aforementioned information and/or data is captured in real or near-real time over a predetermined period of time (e.g., 4, 6 or 8 hour periods) and analyzed preferably immediately thereafter so that analysis results are quickly made available to the appropriate personnel. Quantized periods of time are preferably employed since the information available from the cellular system infrastructure is considerable and, accordingly, it may be beneficial, in view of limited computing power, for example, to limit the amount of data that is being analyzed at any given time. Further, by performing event-to-failure mapping after a relatively short period of time, failures can be more quickly identified.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and system that collects cellular system infrastructure information and/or data, extracts cellular system events therefrom and maps the extracted events into indications of possible or likely cellular system failures.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that notifies the appropriate person when a failure is detected.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that analyzes aspects of at least one of billing information, blocking statistics, call processing data, counter information and alarm information available via the cellular system infrastructure in an effort to quickly identify probable failures.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method and system that captures cellular system information in blocks of time and analyzes the information with respect to possible indications of system failures.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for analyzing cellular system infrastructure data, detecting possible failures and notifying the appropriate manager or technician responsible for resolving such a failure.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent upon a reading of the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.